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Elatochori, Ioannina

Elatochori (, before 1927: Τσερνέσι, Tsernesi; ) is a village and a community of the Zagori municipality, northwestern Greece. Before the 2011 local government reform it was part of the municipality of East Zagori, of which it was a municipal district. The 2021 census recorded 85 inhabitants in the community. The community of Elatochori covers an area of 34.802&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>.

Name

The place name is recorded in a charter from the early 14th century. Scholar Ioannis Lambridis described the name as meaning 'black place'. Linguists Gustav Weigand and Yordan Zaimov wrote the name is from an Aromanian form Cerneși. Scholar Petros Fourikis said the toponym is an Albanian formation with the suffix -ësi and linguist Phaedon Malingoudis stated the name is masculine, and comes from the Slavic preposition Černeš. Linguist Kostas Oikonomou wrote an analogous preposition could not be confirmed for the Aromanian derivation. The Albanian derivation lacks a related prepositional word in Albanian where the subject with the addition of the Albanian ending -ësi would have formed the place name and also that the suffix is not stressed.

Oikonomou stated the etymology provided by Malingoudis is accurate. In Slavic there is the personal name Černeš in Serbian and its patronymic form Črnešić, from Slavic črъnъ 'black', along with other Slavic linguistic forms such as the Bulgarian črъn, črъnica 'mulberry', Serbo-Croatian crn and Slovenian črn, formed with the Slavic suffix -ešъ. From those Slavic words are derived the Greek preposition tserani meaning 'to tan from smoke' and the verb tserniazo 'to blacken', in Aromanian tserniciu and tsirniciu 'sycamore tree producing black berries' and the Romanian cerni 'blacken, turn black, become bitter' and cerneală 'ink'.

Demographics

Elatochori has an Aromanian population and is an Aromanian speaking village. In the early 21st century, elderly people were bilingual in the community language and Greek, whereas younger residents under 40 might have understood the community language but did not use it.

Administrative division

The community of Elatochori consists of two separate settlements:

  • Dilakko (population 12 as of 2021)
  • Elatochori (population 73)

See also

References